Rs 300-crore scheme to strengthen research for climate change cleared

Chetan Chauhan

7 July 2013

India, July 8 -- The Planning Commission has approved a scheme to strengthen domestic scientific research on climate change and improve capabilities of state governments to understand and mitigate the global phenomena that can dampen India's GDP growth by up to 3% by 2020.

The Rs. 300-crore umbrella scheme, Climate Change Action Programme, aims to set up India's first dedicated institution - National Centre for Climate Change Research - for research and climate modeling.

"The proposed centre would coordinate between scientists working on climate change across India and will conduct specific research on climate prediction and adaption," an environment ministry official said.

India, like many western countries, does not have a dedicated national research organization on climate change and relies mostly on models from the developed world. Although many scientists are working on different aspects of climate change, their sporadic efforts fail to conjure a national policy formulation.

The centre, ministry officials say, would produce dedicated national climate scientists with extensions in different states and scientific institutions. The centre to be initially housed in the ministry will have 10 national scientists to analyse technological and scientific data in a systematic manner.

In the coming years it would be converted into an autonomous institution having green house gas inventory management system for publishing India's carbon emissions once in two years. "The programme can initially be planned in the same manner as the Climate Change Assessment Centre, to be housed in the MoEF," a planning commission note said.